- Choose to have sex with one partner who recently tested HIV negative and agreeing to be sexually active only with each other.
- Limit your number of sexual partners, as it decreases your chances of having sex with someone who is living with HIV.
- Choose less risky sexual behaviors. Among oral, vaginal and anal sex, anal sex is the riskiest type of sex for HIV transmission, followed by vaginal sex. Oral sex is much less risky than anal or vaginal sex. Use latex male condoms or female condoms correctly every time you have anal or vaginal sex. Condoms are the only effective form of birth control that also helps reduce the risk of transmitting HIV and most other sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Ask your health care provider about PrEP—a new prevention option for people who are at high risk of getting HIV, can reduce your risk of getting HIV. PrEP is meant to be used consistently, as a pill taken every day. Consider PrEP if:
- You are HIV-negative and in an ongoing sexual relationship with an HIV-positive partner.
- If you do not regularly use condoms during sex and are having sex with someone whose HIV status you don’t know for sure, or who may be at substantial risk of getting HIV (e.g., people who inject drugs or men who have sex with other men).
2. You don’t know his HIV status. You’ve heard it before. You can’t tell someone’s HIV status by looking at them. Remember, 1 in 7 people living with HIV don’t know that they have it. People often get HIV early in a relationship because they don’t know their partner’s HIV status, and they stop using condoms (or other prevention tools) as the relationship becomes more serious.
If you don’t know your partner’s HIV status, then you have a greater chance of getting HIV for many reasons.
- You may wrongly assume that he doesn’t have HIV.
- He may have been infected with HIV a long time ago and was never tested.
- He may have been infected with HIV recently, since his last HIV test.
Even if you know your partner’s HIV status, things could change. You may not always know if your partner is having sex outside of the relationship or doing other things that could increase his chance of getting HIV.
Put your love to the test. Get tested, preferably together. Once you know your results and his, you can make decisions about how best to keep each other safe.
It is important that you and your partner have ongoing conversations about these issues to stay healthy.
3. You’re pregnant – or thinking of becoming pregnant.
If you are pregnant, or planning to get pregnant, knowing your HIV status can help protect your baby from getting HIV. Because 1 in 7 people with HIV do not know their HIV status, many women who are infected with HIV may not know they are infected.
HIV testing during pregnancy is important because if a woman is living with HIV and doesn’t know it, she may accidentally transmit HIV to her baby during the pregnancy, during birth or by breastfeeding. HIV testing provides an opportunity for women living with HIV to find out if they are living with the virus. If a woman is living with HIV, treatment can improve her health and greatly lower the chance that she will transmit HIV to her baby before, during, or after birth. Women with HIV who take HIV medicines (antiretroviral therapy) during pregnancy (as recommended) can reduce the risk of transmitting HIV to their babies to less than 1%.
5 Reasons Women Should Get Tested On National HIV Testing Day was originally published on blackdoctor.org
